The Life and Times of Argus Filch
by UncleRoy
Summary: Born in the angry bowels of a trailer park, Argus Filch was destined to one day become a prestigious wizarding school's janitor.


Argus Filch woke up. Something was wrong. He was in pain. Not the usual pain, mind you. One becomes accustomed to pain after having spent every night of his life sleeping on the cold hard ground of a trailer park. This pain was slightly more painful than usual.

He stood up, fell down, climbed out of his sleeping bag and stood up again. He pulled off the burlap sack he liked to think was a shirt, and noticed something. Where there once was nothing but some sporadic chest hair and a birthmark in the shape of a swastika, there was now a massive throbbing tumor.

Using his insane reasoning skills, Argus realized what he had to do. He poked it. The tumor made a faint squealing noise, and relocated itself to our hero's left leg. Argus poked it again. The tumor emitted a puff of gas, and grew larger. This wasn't working.

He decided it was time to take action. Argus walked up to his parent's trailer, stopped outside the door, and turned. He took in a whiff of the charcoal scented air, and glanced around. His family's trailer lay in the center of the only known wizard's trailer park outside of the States. This was home; home, which he had never left in all his eleven years of life. But soon that would all change, as tomorrow he would be on his way to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, assuming he got this tumor thing worked out.

Argus pulled open the door, and was greeted by the not so welcoming sight of his parents. His father, Jeremiah Filch, was nonchalantly scratching his groin as he read the back of a cereal box, while his mother, Alberta Filch slammed the family cat against the wall for no apparent reason.

Argus cleared his throat. "Mom, dad, I think I have a tumor."

Alberta threw the cat to the ground and stabbed it with her wand before responding. "Well, that won't do," she said. "We can't send our only son to school with a tumor! People will think we're trash! What should we do, Jerry?"

Jeremiah set the box down. "Well, I suppose we should call a doctor or something. What about that Grieves fellow? He seems to know something about medicine."

Alberta spat angrily. "He's a dentist, you ass."

"Whatever." Argus' father stumbled over to the window, opened it, and leaned out. "HEY GRIEVES!" he yelled. "GET IN HERE! BOY'S GOT A TUMOR."

One of the nearby trailers shuddered angrily, and with a sudden _crack!_ A disheveled looking man appeared in the room.

"Who the hell are you?" Argus said.

Alberta smiled sweetly. "Why, this is Mister Grieves, our neighbor. He's a dentist, or a doctor, I can't remember which. Plus, he's probably your biological father. We don't really know for sure."

Mister Grieves cackled. "And we don't really care, either!" he high-fived Argus' father.

After several minutes of high-fivery and a rousing game of grab ass, Mister Grieves managed to calm himself down. "Let's see this tumor, kid."

Argus felt about for the mischievous little growth, which was now located in the small of his back. He prodded it several times, and managed to herd it to his front.

Mister Grieves sighed. "This'll be a delicate operation. Lay down, kid." As soon as Argus had flattened himself against the sticky floor of the trailer, Grieves yanked a gnarled wand out of his mass of graying hair, grabbed a rat off the floor, transfigured the rodent into a bottle, and then slammed it into Argus' forehead. With Argus now unconscious, Grieves used one of the glass shards the bottle had created on impact to slice open the boy's chest.

The doctor/dentist thrust his arm into Argus' innards, and felt around for the troublesome tumor. After several minutes of searching, Grieves' hand returned, now holding a blood-soaked rodent. Mister Grieves laughed. "Why, it wasn't a tumor, it was just a common hedgehog! How 'bout that!"

Alberta snatched the hedgehog out of her neighbor's outstretched hand and heaved it out the window. The creature hit a tree trunk with a satisfying smack.

"Aw shit," Mister Grieves muttered. "I just realized something. This is just wonderful. I kind of sliced open your kid's pancreas on accident. Sorry 'bout that..."

"It's alright," Jeremiah chuckled, "So, what's the pancreas do, anyway?"

Mister Grieves loosened his collar. "See, here's the thing. In muggles, it doesn't do nothing that I'm aware of. But in the case of us wizards, the pancreas holds what I like to call the magic gland. This thing is what lets us do magic. And since I kind of cleaved your kid's gland in half, he's gonna end up a squib. Sorry 'bout that."

Alberta smiled. "That's alright," she said. "The boy will be off to Hogwarts tomorrow, anyway, so we'll let him figure it out on his own. And would you mind dragging him with you on your way out? He's kind of bleeding on the linoleum. Thanks."


End file.
